The Silence of an Empty Mansion
by cagd
Summary: A spoiled diplomat's wife learns the price of peace and career advancement.
1. Chapter 1

Francesca Yutani-Alfarsi, the ambassador's wife, was a good mother.

She knew she was a good mother because her five children never had to do anything they didn't want to - so when the exclusive tutor she hired over her wife's objections said after the first day that her beloved flock were nothing but a bunch of illiterate, unmanageable little savages in need of immediate remedial education and regular beatings, she had the man escorted out of the embassy compound underground because he was obviously a dangerously delusional liar - no, Francesca's children were not illiterate, unmanageable little savages and certainly not in need of a beating. They were gentle, creative, uninhibited miracles of ethical upbringing and the whimsical genetics she'd designed herself. If they were rarely invited to any children's parties held by the military parents stationed on Alpha Centauri, it was only because they were jealous of her unique children compared to their own boring, unmodified ones with only the genes their parents gave them at conception.

Anyway, whenever that envy manifested itself in the form of early dismissals, requests for financial compensation for property damage and medical care, she left that to her wife, ambassador Afaf Yutani-Alfarsi to deal with, which inexplicably made her soul mate quite cross: clearly her beloved didn't understand children or a child's need for freedom to explore, an ethical upbringing, and breast feeding until at least the age of twelve…


	2. Chapter 2

…which is why Francesca screamed when the hulking figure outside the dining room window of the diplomatic mansion casually booted Chang her oldest, on the butt, interrupting his screams as he rolled around on the velvety lawn of the embassy garden before hauling him up by one flailing arm so that he dangled high above the purple grass.

Dreadlocks swinging, the creature's mandibles rattled in Chang's red, snot smeared face. Francesca caught her breath, nails digging into her palms, fighting the urge to run out into the garden and instead glared at Afaf, "It isn't right, to sacrifice a child's self-esteem to some… to some, _treaty_!" she finally spat.

Afaf looked at her without expression; coffee-dark unmodified eyes unreadable beneath her traditional headscarf as they had been for the last three years since she'd been posted at dead-end Alpha Centauri, "The Hunters insist. What their ambassador is doing is a great honor - we don't dare jeopardize the treaty proceedings by refusing - boundaries must be set, they must no longer intrude in Human space- in return they will punish those of their kind who do."

"But Chang, our son, our precious boy, he's only a baby!"

"He's _twelve_."

"He's sensitive!"

"Let. Them. Be."

Francesca stifled a cry, twelve silver fingernails breaking through the skin of her gilded palms, leaving her bloody-handed when Chang landed butt-down on the lawn, scrambled to his feet and expressionlessly got in line with his sisters, precious self-esteem obviously destroyed by the way they intently watched the ambassador without so much as a fidget among them.

Crouching, the monster gave another quick rattle, shimmered, and disappeared.

Francesca's children, including Chang, rattled at each other from the clackers the base machine shop had cobbled together two weeks before, shimmered and disappeared, leaving behind nothing but a quick stirring of the ornamental plantings and faint smudges on the dew-covered lawn.

By the time Francesca ran out of the embassy mansion to where they had gathered around the Hunter ambassador, even those had vanished in the rising heat of the day.


	3. Chapter 3

Francesca lay in the dark beside her snoring wife in their long passionless bed, furious: that thing, that THING had stolen her children the moment he and his entourage had invaded their home as unwelcome, stinking, unethical guests - all in the name of some silly treaty proceedings.

She had gone along with it, it was what an ambassadorial spouse _did_ - she had seen to it that her best china and silver had been laid out- even if the only thing they appeared to eat was MEAT from animals they'd KILLED, refusing the ethical meals Francesca had ordered prepared for them.

She said nothing when they insisted on staying in their ship in the whimsical gardens she had designed rather than the diplomatic guesthouse, maintaining her calm when they ignored her whenever she tried to make pleasant conversation between meetings through the translator, a boring little man with a revoltingly natural hairline - oh what an ambassadorial spouse had to put up with to maintain her prestige!


	4. Chapter 4

But what galled Francesca was how the Hunter ambassador treated the children - it would not be stood for! After urinating in the central fountain that decorated the front reception hall, Chang had gone right up to the ambassador that first night, and KICKED the brute on the armor-plated shin - he was only being friendly! The ambassadorial entourage's masked faces swiveled in her precious son's direction, weapons raised as the ambassador lifted Chang up by his emerald hair and held him at eye level.

The translator dropped his clacker, face white in the sudden, tense silence.

The Hunter ambassador, who loomed above his staff by more than a head, gave out a few languid clicks, dropped Chang to the floor with its antique pre-pacification Moroccan tiles as the entourage lowered their weapons, clicking and grunting among themselves. Though Afaf did nothing, Francesca gathered all of her children and fled to the nursery she had so carefully set up three years before when they'd first been assigned this prestige-less Hellhole after Ai and Lana had innocently set fire to the Arcturian ambassador's house, sealing all doors behind her.

That night Francesca examined Chang as she breast-fed him. He was uninjured, not one hair of his green spotted pelt out of place. Afaf interrupted her diapering Alita, age ten, with bad news: the Hunter ambassador wanted her children to meet them in the garden before sunrise the next day - the morning the Hunters stole her children.


	5. Chapter 5

Oh, they were still hers all right: they looked a proper blend of her and Afaf, which was as it should be, thanks to the money which had bought Francesca amusing modifications as the whim took her and Afaf Alfarsi fifteen years before when Afaf had been a beautiful but penniless grant student from pacified Morocco studying diplomacy at Oxford- but from that morning on, they no longer needed Francesca.

Alita the future poet refused diapering and pointedly used the commode before Francesca could catch her.

Afyah the future sculptor stopped her sweet lisping baby prattle, telling Francesca that because she was now eight, she needed to talk "grown up".

Ai and Lana, her priceless twins with their matching lemur tails, kaleidoscope eyes and rainbow hair, told her that as they were now nine, they wanted to learn how to read - when was that nice man coming back to teach them because it took too long to get mamma to read to them?

In fact, Francesca no longer understood anything they said as the weeks ground past, clicking and rattling among themselves, pausing when she approached, giving her measuring looks that reminded her of Afaf after Chang at age two had torn half the pages out of Afaf's hand written Koran and scribbled on the remaining ones while Francesca applauded his creativity - anyway, why the fuss? It was _just_ a _book_… and the tearing had made Chang so happy! Francesca fled, angrily confronting her wife about the situation; derisive clicks and rattles following her from the guesthouse.

Afaf smiled at Francesca, reminding her about the treaty as their children padded silently about them, no longer prancing, skipping, or expressing themselves by coloring on the walls the way children should, custom engineered hair matted into dreads decorated with broken bits of her best china, naked, but not in the natural way she'd taught them since birth, but in bits and pieces of castoff Hunter armor, unique faces behind masks, shimmering in and out of sight - not playing in the nurturing environment Francesca had so carefully created for them - preferring the Hunter encampment… how… _unnatural!_

All Afaf said was, "Let them, we don't dare endanger the treaty."

6.

Francesca sealed herself in her studio among blank, dusty canvases and a deactivated DNA cooker/fetal incubation unit, drinking mushroom sake in the darkness behind closed curtains. Even Afaf, of all people, had removed her head scarf, revealing dozens of long black braids streaked with unsightly gray, and wore a long Hunter's dagger at the waist of her caftan, rolling balls of the half-charred raw meat that the Hunters provided between her delicate bindi-covered fingers before popping them into her mouth at evening meals, translator between her and the Hunter ambassador, the two of them rattling and grunting back and forth as Francesca's children scrambled all over the Ambassador and his entourage, putting unethical meat in each others mouths, ignoring Francesca as she picked nervously at the ethical meal prepared by her ethical chef… how could Afaf do this to her? They were supposed to be soulmates… to agree in everything!

Afaf simply smiled a few days later when the entire encampment disappeared, rendering Francesca frantic, returning by sundown, her children in smaller sets of armor, masked against her, bruises dark patches against their sun-blackened skins as they wrestled and rolled among the smallest members of the Hunter ambassador's entourage. Clicking, her youngest ran up to her, mouth smeared red, holding out the bloody, headless carcass of some small animal, the raw skull grinning up at Francesca from around the child's neck on a braided string that she had seen Chang make earlier - Francesca did what any ethical being would have done, she screamed and fainted.

When she came to, Afaf rebuked her for embarrassing them all in front of their guests, it was Afyah's first kill; the child only wanted to share!

7.

That night Afaf and Francesca slept in separate bedrooms, the Hunters and her stolen children clicking and yelling late into the night around the fire that was always burning beside the ship.

8.

Francesca woke the next day in the silence of an empty mansion.

Sake bottle in one hand, she wandered from room to room, the servants still asleep, the imported Earth birds just beginning their wakeup calls as the sun crept over the Alpha Centauri horizon decorated with the endless dust clouds of shake and bake terraforming.

Barefoot she wandered out into the garden, toenails clicking against the ancient Moroccan tiles.

The Hunter encampment was gone, the fire a blackened scar on the remains of the once finely manicured lawn.

Francesca sat down on the damp ground in her embroidered ethical silk kimono.

Afaf found her hours later, sweating in the hot, noonday sun.

"They agreed to our terms. The treaty was signed last night after midnight."

Francesca looked up at her wife, squinting wordlessly in the brilliance, Afaf an unfamiliar black pillar against the cerise sky.

"And our children?"

"_Your_ children were part of the agreement." Afaf adjusted her veil with gloved five fingered hands, braids covered. Francesca felt her wife's dark eyes bore into her despite the mesh now masking her face.

"How _could_ you? They were _your_ children, _too_!" Francesca whispered, looking down at where her own three-fingered hands cradled the bottle in her lap.

"They were always yours. You never let me near them."

"I was protecting them."

"If you say so." Afaf turned away, padding soundlessly back towards the mansion, the indigo silk burqa she had set aside the day they had signed the marriage papers rippling in the wind though she had refused to put aside Islam completely no matter how hard Francesca nagged her to give up her obsolete beliefs: "The Hunter ambassador and her daughters thought you incapable of raising a son for glory- more so the girls. They offered to take over their training - in return they agree to keep _their_ sons out of Human space - simple, really."

"_She?_?"

"Didn't you read the brief I left in your studio two months ago?"

"It didn't look important… _how could you?_"

"A pack of five ugly, unmanageable brats in return for peace? I'd say that was a career-saving bargain." Afaf laughed under her breath, "Cheap, too."

9.

Cradling the now empty sake bottle against her breasts, Francesca sat on the lawn for a long time, the contrails of Marine spacecraft so much fading lace overhead.

10.

Eventually Francesca got up and wandered to the trees where the Hunter encampment had been, pausing only to pick up a braided cord left behind by its maker.

11.

That evening, the gardener found an empty sake bottle in the middle of the lawn and Francesca dangling from a high branch, ethical vegetable silk kimono fluttering in the night wind around the limp weight of her taloned feet and dragon's tail, the cord a harsh black line against the faded golden scales on her throat.


	6. Chapter 6

Francesca sealed herself in her studio among blank, dusty canvases and a deactivated DNA cooker/fetal incubation unit, drinking mushroom sake in the darkness behind closed curtains. Even Afaf, of all people, had removed her head scarf, revealing dozens of long black braids streaked with unsightly gray, and wore a long Hunter's dagger at the waist of her caftan, rolling balls of the half-charred raw meat that the Hunters provided between her delicate bindi-covered fingers before popping them into her mouth at evening meals, translator between her and the Hunter ambassador, the two of them rattling and grunting back and forth as Francesca's children scrambled all over the Ambassador and his entourage, putting unethical meat in each others mouths, ignoring Francesca as she picked nervously at the ethical meal prepared by her ethical chef… how could Afaf do this to her? They were supposed to be soulmates… to agree in everything!

Afaf simply smiled a few days later when the entire encampment disappeared, rendering Francesca frantic, returning by sundown, her children in smaller sets of armor, masked against her, bruises dark patches against their sun-blackened skins as they wrestled and rolled among the smallest members of the Hunter ambassador's entourage. Clicking, her youngest ran up to her, mouth smeared red, holding out the bloody, headless carcass of some small animal, the raw skull grinning up at Francesca from around the child's neck on a braided string that she had seen Chang make earlier - Francesca did what any ethical being would have done, she screamed and fainted.

When she came to, Afaf rebuked her for embarrassing them all in front of their guests, it was Afyah's first kill; the child only wanted to share!


	7. Chapter 7

That night Afaf and Francesca slept in separate bedrooms, the Hunters and her stolen children clicking and yelling late into the night around the fire that was always burning beside the ship.


	8. Chapter 8

Francesca woke the next day in the silence of an empty mansion.

Sake bottle in one hand, she wandered from room to room, the servants still asleep, the imported Earth birds just beginning their wake up calls as the sun crept over the Alpha Centauri horizon blurred by the endless dust clouds of shake and bake terraforming.

Barefoot she wandered out into the garden, toenails clicking against the ancient Moroccan tiles.

The Hunter encampment was gone, the fire a blackened scar on the remains of the once finely manicured lawn.

Francesca sat down on the damp ground in her embroidered ethical silk kimono.

Afaf found her hours later, sweating in the hot, noonday sun.

"They agreed to our terms. The treaty was signed last night after midnight."

Francesca looked up at her wife, squinting wordlessly in the brilliance, Afaf an unfamiliar black pillar against the cerise sky.

"And our children?"

"_Your_ children were part of the agreement." Afaf adjusted her veil with gloved five fingered hands, braids covered. Francesca felt her wife's dark eyes bore into her despite the mesh now masking her face.

"How _could_ you? They were _your_ children, _too_!" Francesca whispered, looking down at where her own three-fingered hands cradled the bottle in her lap.

"They were always yours. You never let me near them."

"I was protecting them."

"If you say so." Afaf turned away, padding soundlessly back towards the mansion, the indigo silk burqa she had set aside the day they had signed the marriage papers rippling in the wind though she had refused to put aside Islam completely no matter how hard Francesca nagged her to give up her obsolete beliefs: "Though the Hunter ambassador and her daughters admire your appearance, they thought you incapable of raising a son for glory- more so the girls. They offered to remove you from the gene pool and take over their training - in return they agreed to keep _their_ sons out of Human space - it took a lot of talking to convince them stop insisting that your removal be included in the agreementl."

"My...removal_? She?_?"

"She." Afaf paused, back turned to Frencesca, "Didn't you read the brief I left in your studio two months ago?"

"It didn't look important… _how could you agree to such... such..._"

"Your life and a pack of five ugly, unmanageable brats in return for peace? I'd say that was a career-saving bargain." Afaf resumed her pace, laughing slightly under her breath, "Cheap, too."


	9. Chapter 9

Cradling the now empty sake bottle against her breasts, Francesca sat on the lawn for a long time, the contrails of Marine spacecraft so much fading lace overhead.


	10. Chapter 10

Eventually Francesca got up and wandered to the trees where the Hunter encampment had been, pausing only to pick up a braided cord left behind by its maker.


	11. Chapter 11

That evening, the gardener found an empty sake bottle in the middle of the lawn and Francesca dangling from a high branch, ethical vegetable silk kimono fluttering in the night wind around the limp weight of her taloned feet and dragon's tail, the cord a harsh black line against the faded golden scales on her throat.


End file.
